Experiencing God 245 - Thanksgiving

Welcome to our Thanksgiving mass.  Thanksgiving day provides for us, not only an opportunity to gather around a dinner table and share time with family and friends, but also a chance to thank the one who makes it all possible. We gather here this morning to give thanks to God, because everything that we have has been ultimately gifted to us in and through Him.

Meister Eckhert, a German mystic once wrote:  “If the only prayer you ever say in our whole life is ‘thank-you’, then that will suffice’.  You see, we cannot be thankful if nothing has been given to us.  Therefore to be a thankful, we must first understand and know that there is a source behind all good things that come our way.  Good things just do not happen by coincidence.  Good things are given to us by someone, and as Catholic Christians, we know who that someone is.  A thankful person recognizes this, and with this recognition comes that great attribute of gratitude.  Have you ever been with someone who is filled with gratitude, a gratitude for life?  We all have, and we know they are a joy to be with.  You are that joy when you share the virtue of gratitude with others.
When I was looking through the different options for Gospel readings for Thanksgiving, I discovered that the most popular one is the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers.   
In this story, as you know, only one comes back to express his gratitude directly to Jesus for being cleansed.  This Gospel is perfect lead-in to speak about the power and the joy of heart-felt gratitude.  But I ended up opting for the Gospel from Matthew; the one you have just heard.  I did this after asking myself a question.  And I throw out this question to you. “What is the greatest gift that you are thankful for this thanksgiving in 2019?  What fills your heart with the greatest sense of gratitude?  The answer that came immediately to my mind as I asked this question was the gift of faith.  Today, we hear Jesus saying in the Gospel:  “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to infants.  What has the Father hidden from the so called wise and the intelligent of the world?  What has the Father revealed to mere infants?  It is this mysterious ability to be able to see through the eyes of faith, to see God’s presence and at work in all things. I believe Jesus’ reference to the so called wise and learned is probably directed to the Scribes and Pharisees who got so caught up in the thousands of rules and regulations that though they had to follow, along with everyone else, that they lost sight of God’s presence in the world and the people all around them.    
All things have been handed to me by my Father, Jesus says; and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom I choose to reveal Him. 
We are so blessed to have our gift of faith in the Father who Jesus chooses to reveal to us on a daily basis.  We are fortunate to be able to receive Jesus so personally in the Eucharist, to be forgiven through the sacrament of reconciliation, to be blessed in the sacraments of marriage and orders.  Everything that gives witness to our lives as being special springs from this gift of faith freely given to us by Jesus. In fact, for me, it is only by looking at life through this lens of faith that everything else in this somewhat crazy world begins to make sense.  And in spite of the fact that there is much darkness in the world around us, we can live with thankfulness. We can live in gratitude.
To be a thankful person means firstly that we understand and know, in a heart-felt way, that it is through faith that we discover the source behind the good things that come our way.  The blessings of our family, the blessings of our faith community, our good fortune as Haligonians and Canadians, the joy of the friendships we share with one another. It is through these blessing from God that we can live in gratitude and live out that commission with one another that St. Paul explains in his letter to the Colossians. 
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.  Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, then forgive that person just as the Lord has forgiven you.  Teach and admonish one another in wisdom and with gratitude in your hearts.”   
During this Eucharistic celebration where we are able once again to invite Jesus into our hearts, let us also remember those who perhaps are not doing as we as we are ourselves. 
We remember those who may not have enough food, those who have lost so much in natural disasters, and those who have lost loved ones who will be missed at their Thanksgiving table.  Through their own gift of faith, let us pray that they may, with open hearts, accept Jesus’ invitation as we have heard in today’s Gospel.  “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.  And I will give you rest.”

Experiencing God 244 - Zacchaeus

“The whole world before you, O Lord, is like a speck that tips the scales, and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.”  In this reading from Wisdom, if the whole world before the Lord is only a speck, imagine how small we are.  In the total scheme of things, we are very small, our lives very insignificant  but in God’s eyes, very precious. There’s an old Zen expression that is similar to this that I have used at funerals:  “How should we view life in this fleeting world: Like a star at dawn, like a bubble in a stream, like a flash of lightening in a summer cloud, or like a flickering lamp."  In other words, our lives are over in a flash. We need to hear these wisdom teachings and reflect upon them in order to jolt us from our conventional and often conditioned ways of thinking.  The secular culture in which we live has a way of shaping our thoughts and our behavior in ways that are neither true nor reflect reality.  We often end up placing an inordinate importance on things that are really not important at all, and forgetting the things that are the most important. In Thursday’s church prayer this week, a reading from Thessalonians jolted me in this way. It reads: “You know very well that the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night.  Just when people are saying, “peace and security”, ruin will fall on them with the suddenness of pains overtaking a woman in labor, and there will be no escape. You are not in the dark that this day should catch you off guard like a thief. We belong, not to darkness but to light, therefore let us not be asleep, but awake.” 

We belong, not to darkness, but to light.  Today’s Gospel from Luke we’ve just heard is a story of a man who was lost in darkness, but who found the light.  It is a story of man, not too much different from ourselves, who was lost.  Lost to what?  Lost from God; lost to community; maybe lost to family and even lost to himself: A man caught in the grips of power, inordinate need for success and financial security that extended far beyond his own physical needs.  Zacchaeus, we are told, was a chief tax collector, and was very rich.  His riches were attained by appropriating taxes from those who were poor or just getting by, and profiting a great deal from it himself.  Luke tells us that he was short in stature, but it is very obvious he is also short in moral attributes as well.  His own Jewish name, Zacchaeus, meant “Righteous One”, but there is little that is righteous about him at this point. And as you can well imagine, he was not well liked and respected by his town folks. But when he heard that Jesus was among the many travelling through Jericho, making that 18 mile journey to Jerusalem, he became very interested in seeing Him. Zacchaeus would probably have heard about Jesus from his town folks, and let’s face it, most of what he would have heard would be in direct conflict with his own behavior and lifestyle.  Yet his desire to see him, this mysterious itinerate preacher, out-weighed the jeers, laughter and cat calls he received from the crowds as he the climbed that sycamore trees in the public square.  So he humbled himself in order to see, to make eye contact with that one person who was so different from himself. Zacchaeus was looking for Jesus, but as it turned out, it appears that Jesus was also looking for Zacchaeus. 

And it was this eye contact they made, and the greeting and invitation that followed that jolted Zacchaeus from his conditioned ways of thinking, his self-centered way behaving to see the light of reality, the light of truth. 
He did not hear: “What are you doing Zacchaeus; You look and are acting like such a fool.”  Nor: “You scoundrel Zacchaeus, how dare your cheat people like you do.  But what he heard was Jesus calling him by name: “Zacchaeus, hurry down from there, for I must stay at your house today”.
There’s a powerful line in the first letter of John chapter 4 which says: “We love because God first loved us.”   “We love because God first loved us”. This particular line of scripture has particular significance for me because it wasn’t until I had personally encountered Christ, and experienced His love for me, even though unworthy, that I was able to begin let go of much of my own conditioned behavior that kept me a prisoner, mainly a prisoner to myself.  The quickest and most powerful way of breaking the grips of our own self-centeredness, our own distorted way of seeing things, is through an experiential knowing that we are loved by God.  This correspondingly creates an experiential knowing that we are loved by others and that, we are in fact, loving persons ourselves. 
I don’t think Zacchaeus had much experience of this being loved by God or, very likely, by anyone else.  He had probably grown accustomed to the belief that if you don’t look after yourself, then nobody else will: So first and foremost, look after yourself.  Except, as we all know, just looking after yourself is a very lonely and very empty place. 
The human heart is not designed for the purpose of looking solely after yourself.  If this is your foremost preoccupation, then most likely you will be left a deep sense of emptiness, a life without purpose.   So something or someone is needed to break that false self-centered illusion of life that sticks to us so easily. For Zacchaeus, that someone is Jesus.   I believe you will all agree that it is not possible to have a true encounter with Jesus without being changed by it.  This encounter has a way of restructuring our priorities, and putting them in line with Gospel values.  This is not only true for Zacchaeus, as he was to find out, but it is also true for us today.  Through his own encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus discovered within himself something more precious than the way of life he had adopted and wealth he had accumulated. 
Many of you may have read in Tuesday’s Chronicle Herald the story about the Dunsworth couple from the South end of Halifax who had their own faith encounter some 22 years ago. I believe they are now living in Nicaragua.   The husband writes: “Back in ‘97 when I was a cultural Catholic who identified with my religion, but not actually going to church, I used to think the notion of a spiritual ah-ha moment a lot of hooey.  That is, until I had one.   We had a comfortable life, a house in the south end, members of the Waeg, good public schools for our 4 children.  I had a decent but unfulfilling legal practice.  Things begin to happen when I attended a Halifax dinner for the Canadian Cancer Society where I met a group who had just come back from Guatemala on a project of building homes for Habitat for Humanity, and were now going to Nicaragua on a similar mission. I joined them.   The poverty I saw there caused me to question my whole life course and values. 
More than that, I felt like I was being called by some higher entity to do something, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what.” 
After the Guatemala trip, the Dunsworths continued the same charitable work in Costa Rica and Belize, and then Argentina where they ended up staying for four and one-half years.
In 2005, they moved to Nicaragua where they started their own project relating to a student work development program. This program continues today and currently has 74 students ranging from ages 6 to 16 years funded mainly through US and Canadian sources.  
We are all inspired by these stories of conversion and change.  We are inspired by the fact that the courage to undertake such change does not come from ourselves, but from the faith we possess and share.  As Catholic Christians, like Zacchaeus, we discover that the instrument of change is found in the person of Christ.  Our Gospel ends with the teaching: “For the Son of Man came, (not to judge) but to seek out and to save those who are lost.”

 

Experiencing God 243 Persistence in Prayer

The theme of the readings for the 29th Sunday in ordinary time is a call to be persistent and continuous in our prayers to the Father. Luke, more than all the other Gospel writers stresses the importance of prayer as that means of retaining our communion with God.  It is Luke who often has Jesus going off to a lonely place by Himself to pray, to be present with the Father, to fortify that strong connection of love and trust. There are three points that I would like to make in respect to these readings.
Firstly: Faith, whether it be in others or in God, is built on a relationship and love and trust.  If we don’t love someone, if we don’t trust someone, then it is almost humanly impossible to have faith in them and to respond in faith. 

We currently have a federal election underway in Canada.  On the news, I’ve heard many interviews from people who are still undecided as to how they will vote.  Their most common complaint is that the whole campaign has been so negative that they don’t trust that any of the candidates will fulfill their election promises.  So many will probably not vote or end up spoiling their ballet. This is often the response where trust is absent. 
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story about the little five year old girl who wandered away from her parents and climbed an Oak tree in her back yard. After climbing about 10 feet and looking down, she became very frightened. She cried out to her father for help. Her father came running to her, positioned himself under the tree, and then encouraged her to jump from the branch where she was sitting into his arms. 

It was because of her trust, because of her love for her father that she was able to respond in faith and jump from the tree to safety.  That’s why love and trust are so important in our family relationships if we wish them to remain strong and to grow. A violation of that trust can and does destroy many relationships. 
Secondly, we are all on a journey, a journey towards greater relatedness with God; or we should be.  To move towards this greater faith is God is to develop a stronger relationship of love and trust with Him.  In our journey, we must move away from selfishness towards selflessness.  We must move away from isolation and alienation towards the greater interaction with community and other people of faith. We must move away from being unloving and those feelings of being unloved towards greater intimacy with God.  Sometimes we like to think of this as happening suddenly, as in a prayer offered and instantly answered, but for most of us, this is a slow process of growth, often taking place over the course of a whole lifetime.
Thirdly, the principal way to grow in our relationship with God, to enhance our love and trust, is through persistent prayer.  The best description that I’ve ever heard about prayer comes from C. S. Lewis.  He says that the purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to my will, but to conform my will to God’s.  I’ll repeat that: “The purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to my will, but to conform my will to God’s.”  To grow towards greater relatedness with God, to conform my will to God’s will, is a process of continual growth that takes place over a lifetime.  And it requires persistence in our prayer. 

As in our marriages and other human relationships, mature love and trust requires our continual attention, our continual working at it.  When it comes to God, this is the labor of our continual prayer.

In our opening line of the Gospel, Jesus is telling his disciples:  “You must pray always and never lose heart.”  In other words, when it comes to growth in our intimacy with God, persistence in our prayer is so critical. 

And as an illustration of this persistence, he shares the parable of the widow and the unjust judge.  The widow has suffered an injustice, we don’t know what it is, but it is obviously something that has prevented her from getting on with her life.  There’s an obstacle or block that needs to be removed so that life can be restored.  So she appeals to a judge for help.  But the unjust judge refuses because he has no concern for her plight.  We read that the judge has neither fear of God or respect for people. In other words, he doesn’t care.  But it is in the widow’s persistence that the unjust judge eventually yields to her request, even if done for selfish reasons. The obstacle or block is removed and she is able to get on with her life.  Now if persistence works even in those cases with those who do not care, then how much more certainly it will work with God who does care.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us: “Will not God grant justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him?  Will he delay long in helping them?  I tell you, God will quickly grant justice”. 

Like yourselves, during my own lifetime, I’ve had many obstacles removed which enabled me to get on with my life at that particular moment and to move forward with greater love and trust: And the process continues.  I still have a long way to go.  But I know that through my own daily discipline of prayer God is there to help me with this process of ongoing growth. And I don’t see this as ever ending. 

Much of my prayer now is not necessarily an activity that has to get done; but has become a way of being with God, a way of seeing God in all things and knowing that God is presence no matter what the circumstances.

Perhaps this is an analogy of what’s going on in our first reading where the Israelites were doing battle with their enemy at Rephidim.  As long as they saw Moses’ outreached hand, they prevailed against their enemy because it was a visible sign of God’s Presence with them. But when Moses’ hand was no longer seen, the enemy prevailed.  When we know that God is Present with us, that He is on our side, then we have a much greater strength to fight the battles of life that come our way.  As we read in the psalm: I lift up my eyes, from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.     

Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel:  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”.

Prayer is that sacred way of maintaining our connection with Christ the vine, so that we may grow in the way of life to which He is calling us.

Several years ago, at a workshop given to the Deacons and their wives, I recall Archbishop Mancini saying that when it comes to prayer, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.  What he meant by this is that we all have our own particular way of coming to Christ, and connecting with Him in a relationship of love and trust.  Find and follow the way that works best for you.  It may be through the reading of scripture or the daily use of the church prayer.  It may be from daily mass or sitting before the Blessed Sacrament.  It may be from being part of a faith sharing group, Marian devotion, or the silence and stillness of meditation.  It may be several or all of these.  Find the way that works best for you so that you may enhance that love and trust of God in your own life.  And resist the distractions that come along, whatever they may be, to do nothing.  Prayer is there as a discipline to help us break the roots of our own insecurity, to break our excessive attachment to pleasure, comfort and things, so that we may enter into that greater relatedness with Christ. 

Experiencing God 241 Cost Of Discipleship

One of the more popular game shows that ran on the CBC from 1957 to 1995 was “Front Page Challenge”.  Most of you, I suspect are familiar with it.  Gordon Sinclair, a very vocal, and often uncompromising journalist served on this panel show for most of those years.  Gordon Sinclair, as you know, was a colorful character. You couldn’t help but like him a bit, but he often proudly professed, in no uncertain terms, to being an atheist.  I remember on one of the “Front Page Challenge” shows where he announced quite brashly:  “How can you be a Christian when you are told in the Gospels that you cannot be a follower of Jesus unless you hate your father, mother, spouse, brothers, sisters, and even your own children.”  I have a feeling that Gordon Sinclair probably had a deeper understanding of this Gospel passage then what he portrayed that night on TV. 

But his question does cause us to ponder and to ask ourselves what is Jesus getting at in today’s Gospel with His very challenging conditions to being a disciple?  Is Jesus putting people off from being His followers when His demands are such that no reasonable person would seriously consider being a disciple under the circumstances?  First of all, we must understand that the language used by Jesus in today’s Gospel is deliberately strong.  There is a strong point that Jesus wishes to convey to the crowds. 

But we must also understand that we cannot interpret his words in a fundamentalist way.  His words must be understood in the way that He intended.  If we ask ourselves a simple question: Did Jesus love his parents? Did he love his mother Mary? The answer to these questions are obvious.  In fact, even during His excruciating and painful death on the cross, Jesus openly expressed deep concern for His mother, for her care and welfare. In the Gospel of John, we read: “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to His mother: woman, here is your son, and to John he said: Here is your mother. So why is the word “hate” used in the Gospel.  We must hate our mother, or we must hate our father etc.

The word “hate” as used in this passage from Luke is what is called a “Semitic idiom”.  It is not referring to the negative emotions directed towards another as we would normally understand it, but has to do with preference.  What Jesus is saying is that we have to give lessor preference to our relationship with family members than to God. We have to give lessor preference to even our own life than to our relationship with God. In other words, we must put God first.  It can be said that when things are put right with God, then they are also put right with all others including ourselves. God knows what is best for us even before we know what is best for ourselves.

It is from this context that we can begin to understand and embrace Jesus’ other very strong challenges of discipleship: That we must take up our cross and follow Him: That we must be willing to give up all of our other possessions, or to "prefer them less" than our relationship with Christ. After all, worldly possessions are passing things, but Christ is eternal.

The second question we can ask ourselves from today’s Gospel is: Why at this point of time did Jesus use such strong language for discipleship which could easily have turned people away. Is His timing good?

Jesus spoke these words during his final journey to Jerusalem, a journey that would end in his own death by crucifixion.  The opening line of the Gospel reads:  “Large crowds were travelling with Jesus”.  Jesus challenged them because he saw that the crowds were caught up in an excitement, a fascination towards the person of Jesus Himself.  They were seeing Jesus as a superstar, a celebrity, and they were reacting to Him as we often do when a celebrity comes to town.  We can put on the tee shirt, or we can wave the flag, but that does not make us a follower.  It makes us only a fan. 

The crowds witnessed the miracles of Jesus.  They saw people being healed. They were impressed by his teachings.  And like many caught up in the amazement of the moment, they wanted to follow their new celebrity.  But they knew little of the sacrifices that were needed to be a follower.

Discipleship with Jesus could not be just a human fascination with passing event.  He challenged the crowds with two stories too illustrate that the cost of discipleship was much greater than just being an admirer.  It was important to Jesus that they were aware of these demands and to weigh them carefully.  Without that, they could begin to lay some sort of foundation, but not able to complete the construction.   

Saint Paul knew the full cost of discipleship.  In our second reading from his letter to Philemon, he speaks from prison, an imprisonment for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  His “yes” to Christ, his willingness to be faithful to the Gospel, makes him ready to accept whatever may come to be faithful to God’s mission. 

Understanding correctly the challenges proposed by Jesus and lived out by St. Paul; we are also given that opportunity to affirm our faith in Jesus, and to express our willingness to be His disciple.  Jesus is again reminding us that our choice to follow him is probably one of the most radical decisions we can ever make in our life. 

To make such a decision, Jesus has be to more important to us than our family, more important to us even than those we love most in the world, certainly more important to us than anything we could ever possess.  And Yes, Jesus must even be more important than our own comforts, status, health and life itself. 

On Thursday, we celebrated the feast day for St. Mother Teresa, our patron saint.  We are fortunate to have her as an example for the church as one who really did follow Jesus, one who was a true disciple.  As the price for her own discipleship, Mother Teresa gave herself completely. She made no attempt to trust in herself but relied totally on the Lord who promised to give her all she needed in order to be faithful to him.  May her example be an inspiration for us to live out our own lives as Jesus' disciples.

Experiencing God 240 - Strive For The Narrow Door

“Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many will try to enter and will not be able.”

Some evenings when Mary Anne and I have nothing in particular to do, we’ll flip through the channels on the TV to look for a good movie to watch.  There’s an awful lot of trash out there, but when we stumble on to a movie with the caption, “based on a true story” or “inspired by a true story”, it is usually one that we enjoy watching.   The reason for this is because it is usually a story about a person or a family facing a crisis situation or extraordinary circumstances, but who are able to rise above it and overcome it because of their courage, because of their determination in working together, because of their faith.  The courageous choices they make helped them through their difficulty.  And often times it meant not following the norm, the status quo.  We all have these stories to tell.  I believe that each one of you gathered here today, living out your faith, despite many outside resistances, have similar experiences to share. 
We are all on a spiritual journey.  This is true whether we are religious or not.  We all travel some sort of spiritual path.  And every day we make choices that affect the direction we are going.  Some may not even be aware that they are travelling on a spiritual path.  Others may sense that there are many paths, all leading to the same destination. 
Perhaps this is what gives rise to the question posed by a stranger to Jesus in today’s Gospel:  “Lord, will only a few be saved?”  Jesus does not really answer the question, at least not directly.  His only response to this stranger is to strive to enter through the narrow door. 
In this Gospel, and in the other synoptic Gospels, Jesus implies that there are principally two doors or paths that we can take in our spiritual journey.  One path, he says, is wide and heavily populated: it is the way, it seems, that the majority what to go.  The other path is narrow, but travelled by the few.  The challenge that today’s Gospel to us are: Which path are we on?  Are we allowing good choices to affect direction we are taking? 
Perhaps we can take a few moments to explore these two paths that Jesus is speaking about in today’s Gospel.
As I said before, Jesus describes one path as wide and the other as narrow.  One is broad, and the other more restricted.   The path that is described as wide and broad is the one that does not require much effort.  It does not require of us giving up much of anything. In this path, we are allowed to bring along whatever “baggage” we desire whether it be materialism, prejudice, hatred or an unforgiving spirit.  We can believe and do pretty well whatever we want because there are few restrictions concerning beliefs or behaviors. 
The broad way requires no change in lifestyle and our behavior and is based on what we desire for ourselves.  Perhaps it could be described as the “door of least resistance”.  One of the main characteristics of the broad way is the false sense of freedom that it provides.   
And then there is the path that is narrow.  This path, since it is narrow, requires more of our concentration, more of our dedication, more self-denial and obedience to the truth.  In order to join this path, there is no room for a consuming desire for the things of the world because we can become attached to them.  We must let go of our excess baggage because its heaviness will weigh us down. There is no room for an unforgiving spirit or self-righteousness. The narrow path requires an adherence to a certain way of life, and often, a need for a change in our behavior.  On this path, God is building His own character in us, and we are being transformed inwardly so that we may learn to choose wisely as He chooses.
As Jesus encourages us in the Gospel, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate”.  This does not necessarily come naturally to us.  We discover this path, not only by great effort on our part, but also by the right kind of effort.  To find this path, it is necessary that we enter into a discipline of prayer, to consciously seek the Presence of Christ in our lives, to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus tells us each path has its own destination.  The broad way, he says, leads to death while the narrow way leads to life.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples:  “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  The narrow way requires that we know what this means for us.  When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we recognize the truth of the Gospel and find refuge in it, it is then that we discover the way that leads to life. 
Jesus does not pull any punches in respect to this as he shares in today’s gospel: “Many will try to enter this narrow way but will not be able too.”  And he tells the story of the person who tried to enter the master’s house after he has retired for the night. 
Standing outside, he shouts: “Master, open to us.  We know all about you.  We ate and drank with you as you taught in the streets.”  But the narrow way requires more than knowing about the Lord; it requires that we walk the path He has prepared for us.  It requires that we have that personal relationship with Him, that guidance from the Holy Spirit.  It is then that we discover that the door has already been opened for us. 
As we hear in the Book of Revelation, Jesus is saying to us:  “Here I am. I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” 
So in summary, Jesus is presenting an image for us to learn by, to be used as a guide.  I don’t think it is helpful to use this image to judge others as to where they may be.  The zig zag pattern of my own life’s journey would certainly indicate that I was not always solidly following the way recommended by Jesus.  But it is in our desire to follow in His truth, and to make the necessary adjustments to live more fully by that truth that we have the promise of “new life”; the fullness of life now, a sharing in His resurrection in the life to come.  There are many steps we can take to help us travel the path that leads to New Life, but a foundational step, one particular aspect for us to work on, is to hold on to God’s truth.  In doing so we discover that it is this truth that illuminates our path for the journey; it is this truth that guides us on the path prepared for us by God.  As we read in the psalm:  “His word is a lamp for our feet, and a light to our path.”  Let us pray for the determination, the courage, and guidance from the Holy Spirit to follow in this path he has prepared for us.

Experiencing God 239 - Riches Towards God

Alfred rose early and set about to prepare his morning cup of tea.  He was more anxious than normal this morning as he was thinking about his brother who had passed away a few days before.  He hastily glanced through the morning paper looking for news of the event.  When he turned to the obituary section, he was shocked to see his own name listed among the deceased.  The newspaper had published Alfred’s obituary in error instead of his brother’s.  But he was even more appalled when he saw the obituary title:  “The Merchant Of Death Is Dead”.  The article described him as someone who had found new ways to kill people and becoming very rich in the process.  Is this what people really think of me? He thought.  Of course, the description was somewhat true.  You see Alfred had invented dynamite and other types of explosives that were being used as weapons of war.  And the sale of the explosives did make him very rich.  But was he really the evil person described in the obituary?  Well Alfred certainly didn’t think so; but it started him thinking. 

Before he was to finish that first cup of tea that morning, he realized that he had to change his life.  In a moment, he resolved that he would no longer focus on developing instruments of war to gain riches for himself. 
Instead, he vowed to devote his time and resources to improving the lives of others.  The rest of his life would be dedicated to working for world peace. 

At the end of his life in 1896, Alfred left most of his very sizable estate to finance generous awards for those who would follow in this work of peace.  His full and well-known name, even to us today, was Alfred Bernhard Nobel. 

Most of us will never experience such a life-changing event as Alfred Nobel did.  But his experience of facing his own unflattering obituary might give us reason to reflect on our own priorities.  Are we focusing excessively on accumulating more things?  Are we striving for a higher rung on the social ladder?  Are we spending excessive energy on obtaining what we feel is rightfully ours? 

St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians reminds us that our lives are surrounded with many passing things.  And these passing things can, if we allow them, occupy most of our thoughts, time and energy; but unfortunately, they will never fully satisfy us.  Matthew Kelly in his most recent book called “Rediscover the Saints” wrote:  “We all have restless hearts.  And we so often mistakenly believe that certain things like possessions, pleasures and experiences will make us happy for longer than they do.  We have all made those mistakes, and yet God waits for us; waits for us, like a patient Father.”  

St. Paul tells us today: “Set your hearts on things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.”  In other words, all that we do, our social involvements, our family relationships, and our work should reflect our faith in Jesus, our love for God, and the love we must have for one another. 

St. Paul teaches us that we should “put to death" those parts of our earthy reality that does not conform to the life that God desires for us, whether it be immorality, impurity, evil desire or greed.  We must put on a new self; we must be renewed in the image of our creator. 

I believe we all know this.  We have heard it many times over the years from the Wisdom scriptures, from the Gospels and from others; yet, for some reason, it is something that is so easy for us to forget as we get distracted and carried away by so many things around us. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus tells us two stories to illustrate how easy it is to become obsessive about the passing things of the world.  The first story is about a man caught up in a dispute over a family inheritance.  This man feels that his brother has taken advantage of him, and wants Jesus to be his arbitrator in settling the account.  And of course, Jesus wants nothing to do with this.  The lesson for us from this story is that, in the Kingdom of God, our lives will not be defined by our possessions. 

To explain this, Jesus goes on to tell the story of the rich man who has had an abundant crop.  His thoughts are not on sharing his abundance with those who have little or nothing, but on creating his own security nest egg where all the comforts of life will be available to him. 

Jesus shows us the folly of this hoarding of worldly goods when he warns the rich man; “this very night your life will be demanded of you; and for all those things you have accumulated, to whom will they now belong?  The rich man does not even recognize that he has become a prisoner of his own possessions.  He lives only to accumulate.  Sure, he’s able to increase his wealth and amass goods, but when death calls, to what end does it serve.    

Neither Jesus nor St. Paul condemns us for our accomplishments, or the use of our gifts to provide for our needs and the needs of our family.  They both know that money is important to us, that we need it to house, feed, clothe and care for those trusted to our care.  But they urge us to consider just how vital our wealth really is.  Is it such an obsession that we allow it to dominate our lives?  Have we become slaves to our possessions? 

Each of us have been given certain gifts by God, including our intelligence, our physical abilities, our time, and our talents.  Even our wealth and material possessions are gifts from God.  The question that we must always ask ourselves, even as challenging as it may be: "Do I use the gifts that God has given me to create riches in God’s eyes, or am I only storing up treasures for myself?" 

Alfred Nobel needed that time; he needed that moment of awakening to realize that his abundance was given him, not just for himself, but to serve God and to serve others.  How may we, perhaps in the many small ways we can, share our gifts of time talent and treasure to become rich before God?

Experiencing God 238 Christian Service

A program relating to Christian Service that I have found most useful is called “Strength Finders”.  Some of you may have taken it.  This program identified your personal strengths and your areas of giftedness.  The idea behind this program is that when we serve from our strengths, we are more motivated, more passionate about what we do, and better able to serve others with the greatest amount of ease and enjoyment. Serving in those areas where we are not gifted nor have a particular interest can be both tiring and frustrating and certainly not as beneficial to those being served. 

The readings from scripture for today are about service; service and hospitality.  As God`s people, we all know that service is tied in directly with the teachings of our Christian faith, yet, it is all too easy to develop a wrong understanding of service.  Community can sometimes be a challenging place to be because it is made of people with many different gifts, different strengths, personalities, and views.  So unless we are careful, in our ministry or service to others, we can run into conflicts as to how things should be done.  Over the years, I’ve encountered a few instances where some have even moved away from Christian involvements because their view conflicted with those they were working with.

I really like what Rick Warren has to say about Christian service in his book “The Purpose Driven Life”.  He says: “Christian servants must focus on their mission, not about what others are doing.  In good Christian service, we don’t criticize, we don’t compare, we don’t compete with other Christians.”

Rick Warren says that competition among God’s servants is illogical for many reasons.  We’re all on the same team.  Our goal is to make God look good, not ourselves.  The mission cannot be accomplished unless we all work together in the common faith we share.

The first reading from Genesis is a perfect example of service and hospitality.  Abraham has visitors from the Lord.  And in the tradition of his people, he and his family offer hospitality and service to their visitors.  Abraham invites them in, gives water to wash and cool their feet from the desert sand, and then offers them nourishment. 

Abraham and his family go out of their way to prepare fresh bread, and kill the calf for them to eat.  Abraham did not do it all himself.  He worked with his wife Sarah and his servants for the preparation, each doing their own tasks for their guests.  As a result, they all found favor with God.  What if Sarah said to Abraham: “Make your own bread.  I’m busy right now.”  I don’t think that would have worked very well.  The guests would probably have got up and left.  It worked because each saw what needed to be done and contributed to its accomplishment.

Our gospel story is also about service and hospitality.  Jesus and the twelve apostles make a visit to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  How would you like to have an extra thirteen guests for supper, and coming unannounced?  I think that in its-self would cause me to be a little frazzled.  But we must remember; these people are all good friends.  They shared the same faith. They are involved in the same mission.  Jesus and the apostles would have stopped at this home many times in the past, and they knew they would be welcomed there. They would have shared many times together; so they were all very comfortable with one another. 

And the householders, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, as they had done many times before, set out to make their guests comfortable and to feel at home.  They each set out to do the service they felt was necessary at the moment.  The difficulty that came up had nothing to do with the work that Martha was doing in the kitchen.  The difficulty that came up was that Martha got distracted by her younger sister who she thought was not being very helpful, was not fulfilling her role.  So she started to complain. 

When Martha complained to Jesus that Mary was not doing her share, she temporarily lost her sense of mission. Her focus was no longer on the service to be done, the mission to be accomplished, but on what others were doing.
For some reason when we hear this gospel, most of us picture this scene as Martha in a hot kitchen by herself, doing all this work, while everyone else, including Mary, were sitting in the living room chatting and having fun. This certainly does not fit in with Jesus’ model of servant leadership that he speaks about previously in the gospel.  What if we picture the scene with a kitchen buzzing with apostles and perhaps even neighbors who are all sharing in the tasks of preparing the meal.  And then Martha sees Mary not fitting into what she feels is her defined role.

Rick Warren addressed this issue.  It’s not the job of a Christian servant to evaluate the Master’s other servants.  Martha forgot that what Jesus needed at that particular moment from Mary was her attentiveness, her caring presence, her listening heart. 

Jesus’s words to Martha were not meant to chastise her for her lack of performance.  What she was doing was critically important, necessary and good. 

His words were to remind Martha that service comes in many forms, and at that moment, what Mary was doing was what was needed the most.   “Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken from her.”  Jesus was challenging Martha to change the way she was looking at things.

To be a servant of Christ requires that we must often make a mental shift in our thinking, a change in our attitudes.  God is more interested in us using our gifts for His mission, versus directing others as to what we think they should be doing. 

As Christian servants, this mental shift or change in attitudes is required so that we can begin to think in the following manner about our role as servant:

·       Servants must think more about others and providing support than about themselves

·       Servants must focus more on the mission, their work to be done, not on what others are doing.

·       Servants must see their ministry as a response to serve Christ out of love, not to look or feel good about themselves.

·       Servants must see their ministry as an opportunity to serve others from their strengths and gifts, not as an obligation to be fulfilled.

St Paul summarizes these four attitudinal changes in the reading we have just heard from Colossians:  "I became a servant for the sake of the Body, that is the Church, according to God`s commission given to me, for you.  And that commission is to make God`s word fully known, teaching every person in all wisdom, so that we may present every person mature in Christ."

Perhaps this is a good message for us to hear during these changing times when our church has been challenged to embrace the new call to be missionary disciples.   Many of us may not be involved directly in those initiatives to encourage the disengaged to be a part of our Catholic church, but we can be supportive of them.  We can also be open to discover ways in which we can be indirectly involved in this mission in the places where we are currently serving.  

When I see church in this way, it is something to which I want to belong, and also something I want to share with others.  Let’s pray for its success, and also pray that we may discover how the Holy Spirit wishes to involve us in the process.